Applications for a spot in the 2019 class are available at www.fintechinnovationlabnyc.com and are due by December 1, 2018. An information session will be held for applicants on November 5th.

The FinTech Innovation Lab is a program for entrepreneurs who are developing disruptive enterprise technologies for the financial services sector including banking, insurance and asset management. Based on feedback from senior executives at participating financial institutions, the Lab is seeking companies leveraging innovative technologies and building solutions around artificial intelligence/machine learning, blockchain, data analytics, privacy, robotic process automation and security. Insurance executives highlighted interest in claims and underwriting automation, compliance and risk management, customer and agency experience, leveraging new data sources and new insurance products. In addition, the Lab is open to tech companies with other disruptive financial models across various domains, including asset management, treasury, investment banking, HR, IT infrastructure and regtech.

“New York’s density of leading banks, asset managers and insurers is key to the strength of the city’s fintech sector, said Maria Gotsch, President & CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City and Co-founder of the FinTech Innovation Lab. “Collaboration between entrepreneurs and 40+ established players that participate in the Lab has been critical to unlocking growth for so many of our alumni—and for keeping Wall Street at the cutting-edge of finance.”

Chief technology officers and senior technology executives from the participating financial institutions will select up to 10 of the applying fintech companies to participate in the 2019 Lab through a competitive process.

Applicants must have at least a working beta version of their technology that is ready to be tested for either the institutional or retail market. The Lab, which begins in April 2019, will partner the selected fintech entrepreneurs with senior-level bank, insurance and wealth management executives, who will help them fine-tune and develop their technologies and business strategies through a series of workshops, panel discussions, user-group sessions, networking opportunities, one-on-one meetings, and presentations. The Lab culminates in June 2019 with Demo Day, a presentation by this year’s cohort to an audience of venture capitalists and financial industry executives, which will be hosted at the Bank of America Tower at Bryant Park.

“In what is now our ninth year running the FinTech Innovation Lab, we have seen an explosive growth trajectory for fintech innovation and investment,” said David Treat, a managing director in Financial Services for Accenture, which co-founded the Lab. “The Lab has proven to be a catalyst for jumpstarting emerging technology companies’ product and business development, as well as forging relationships between entrepreneurs and large financial institutions. We anticipate an exciting round of innovations for this year’s class.”

“Facing disruption and the need to evolve quickly, insurers must innovate at an increasingly rapid pace to retain a competitive edge,” said John Cusano, a senior managing director in Accenture’s Insurance practice at Accenture. “Investments by traditional financial services institutions in cutting-edge technologies, enabled by programs such as ours, help them deliver the level of change the industry requires and customers demand. We look forward to building upon the momentum we started last year at the Lab when we first introduced the InsurTech track.”

“The FinTech Innovation Lab breaks down barriers that can impede collaboration between fintech companies and financial institutions,” said Hicham Oudghiri, co-founder and CEO of Enigma, a graduate of the 2014 FinTech Innovation Lab. “The candid feedback we received from global banking executives who have made the Lab part of their R&D strategy has helped us scale our solutions in the world’s most competitive market.”

Since the New York FinTech Innovation Lab was founded in 2010, it has provided entrepreneurs from 58 technology companies with mentoring and access to CEOs, CTOs and CIOs from more than 43 financial and insurance institutions, as well as leading venture capitalists and technology luminaries.
Previous participants include Digital Asset, a provider of distributed ledger technology-based solutions; Enigma, which transforms disparate data into applicable intelligence; and Pymetrics, which applies proven neuroscience games and cutting-edge AI to reinvent the way companies attract and retain talent. Program graduates have created more than 900 jobs and have raised more than $790 million in venture financing after participating in the program; five participants have been acquired.

The 43 participating institutions providing mentoring and guidance for this year’s applicants include: AIG; Alight Solutions; Amalgamated Bank; Ally; American Express; Aon; Bank of America; Barclays; BlackRock; BNP Paribas; BNY Mellon; Capital One; Chubb; Citi; Credit Suisse; Fidelity Investments; Goldman Sachs; The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Marsh & McLennan Companies; Mastercard; Morgan Stanley; New York Life; NFP; RBC Capital Markets; Rabobank; Synchrony; TIAA; UBS; and Wells Fargo.

In addition to the aforementioned companies, supporting venture-capital firms include Anthemis Group, Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan, Contour Venture Partners, Nyca Partners, Rho Ventures, RRE Ventures and Warburg Pincus.